Felice Brothers - Tonight At The Arizona

Released in June this year by the UK based label Loose The Felice Brothers hail from the Hudson Valley in the USA (upstate New York), the same part of the world that Bob Dylan & The Band sometimes called home & recorded. Fair enough to say that the Felice Brothers owe a debt to these great artists, which is fine as they do not try to hide the obvious influences.

The Felice Brothers actually contain some brothers plus some drifters who have latched on them. The band are, Simone, Ian and James Felice, a runaway dice-thrower called Christmas, The Searcher and Farley. They call themselves unschooled illegal street/subway musicians & from the start, their distinct brand of songwriting and the lawless sound they've forged has earned them comparisons to Woodie Guthrie, Neil Young, Walt Whitman & the aforementioned Bob Dylan.

Probably the best on-line review comes from Drowned in Sound.

Fresh of face but haggard of voice, The Felice Brothers have weathered a few storms, quite literally. Composed by the (unschooled) eldest three boys from a carpenter’s family seven children strong, along with their runaway friend called Christmas, Tonight At The Arizona documents the reality of happy endings not being one of life’s guarantees. From teenage pregnancies and the study of your firearm as you contemplate suicide, to being arrested for the drugs you were dealing to pay for your mother’s medical bills, the gritty contents are delivered with a wavery-voiced nod to all-time greats Dylan and Guthrie, backed by wailed group choruses liberated from hick bars and films set in the Deep South.

Links:
myspace.com/thefelicebrothers
www.loosemusic.com/thefelicebrothers
www.thefelicebrothers.com